Jesus, the Best Capernaum Folk-Healer

Book excerpt: This book takes the established fields of orality, performance, and first-century Christian healthcare studies further by combining analogues of praise performances to Apollo, Asclepius, and those from the Dondo people of South Eastern Zimbabwe to propose that Jesus’s healing stories in Mark’s Gospel are praise-giving narratives to Jesus as the best folk healer within the region of Capernaum. The book argues that the memory of Jesus as the folk healer from Capernaum survived and possibly functioned in similar contexts of praise-giving within early Christian households. The book goes through each healing story in Mark’s Gospel and imaginatively listens to it through the ears of analogue from praise-giving given to Greek healers/heroes and similar practices among the Dondo people. The power, completeness, and effectiveness in which Jesus healed each of the mentioned conditions provoke praise-giving from the listeners to the best folk healer in the village. In each instance, while Mark is calling for attention to the new healer, more so, he is raving praise-giving.